The Common Council met 03/06/2024. Two of the items they took up were the final resolutions declaring the city intended to levy special assessments against property owners for the city’s 2024 concrete pavement, driveway aprons, and sidewalk construction projects as well as the city’s 2024 sanitary laterals, storm laterals, and storm main projects. Both of these items had associated public hearings at which several members of the public spoke.
The projects included concrete pavement and sidewalk construction along Amethyst Drive and Clearfield Court and underground sanitary laterals, storm laterals, and storm mains along Perkins Street and Morrison Street.
Residents expressed concerns about the cost of the assessments, the disruption to their privacy, and the inconvenience of the projects.
The Council voted unanimously to approve both special assessment resolutions.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
Residents along Perkins Street expressed opposition to the project which aligned with the reasoning they had laid out to the Municipal Services Committee in November of 2023. The public hearing was actually for underground work that would be taking place later this year in 2024, but some of the residents expressed opposition to the planned repaving and sidewalk installation project that will take place tentatively in 2025 and wasn’t actually part of the items the Council was voting on that evening. They opposed the installation of sidewalks, believing them to be both unnecessary and burdensome.
Additionally, both Perkins Street residents and Morrison Street residents expressed concerns about the city coming into their houses to install new storm and sanitary laterals in their basements. They were worried about the cost and the imposition on their privacy.
It was later clarified during the Council’s discussion that while the city did need to go into people’s basements and verify what sort of laterals currently existed, they would make an effort to accommodate the homeowners’ schedules. It also sounded like, if a homeowner’s existing lateral material was acceptable, that it would not need to be dug up and replaced as part of this project.
The Amethyst Drive pavement project had originally been scheduled to take place in 2023 but, due to budgetary concerns, had to be deferred until 2024. In 2023, the city’s special assessment policy had assessed homeowners in new developments for 75% of the cost of the first concrete street pavement. In 2024, the policy was changed to assess homeowners in new developments 100% of the cost. However, the Common Council had voted to assess Amethyst Drive residents at the old 75% rate in light of the fact that their pavement project had originally been scheduled in 2023. Nevertheless, one resident expressed dissatisfaction that his assessment costs were around $1,000 higher in 2024 than they would have been had the project gone forward in 2023.
A Clearfield Lane resident was upset at how high his assessment was. When he purchased his property in 2021, he was aware that he would be assessed for the cost of the initial street pavement. He had asked the city for an estimate of what that would be and, at the time had been given an estimate of approximately $8,000. Now, he was facing an assessment of almost $20,000 which he found shocking. “[T]he fact of the matter is I was misinformed, grossly misinformed by the city, border line negligently misinformed by the city. I did every due diligence, went to the appropriate departments, asked the right questions. I made all the right decisions, and I’m now being penalized as a result of that.”
When asked about the discrepancy, Director of Public Works Danielle Block explained that the estimate had been based on 2019 numbers [and, if I understood correctly, the 2019 assessment rate of 75% versus 100%]. Inflation also played a role in the larger number, but the biggest part of the discrepancy was that the estimate that had been provided had only been for the road pavement and had not included the cost of installing 167 feet of sidewalk or of pouring the driveway apron.
The Common Council went on to vote 12-0 to approve the special assessment resolutions.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1171629&GUID=0CBC4B2B-520E-4F1A-A9E5-74E43E04D874
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